Earth Day Commentary
Posted by Steve Welzer on 04/22/07How Will Our Grandchildren See Us?
By Scott Bontz
Thirty years ago, Alex Haley’s “Roots” on television inspired millions to sleuth their blood ties to history. On this anniversary, let’s imagine what our own descendants will make of us when they look back.
What they will see is that Earth’s people more than tripled between 1950 and 2050. They’ll see that halfway through this explosion, American material consumption had grown so voracious that four Earths would be needed for everyone on the planet to live the same way. And they’ll see that billions tried.
They’ll see that this combination exhausted and poisoned water supplies, exterminated hundreds of thousands of species, and plowed under forests and grasslands, eroding essentially irreplaceable soils.
They’ll see that what fueled the “free market” was humanity’s biggest free lunch: We exploited energy accumulated over millions of years - coal, oil and natural gas. And we did it even though we knew we’d run out.
They’ll see that burning these fossil fuels raised temperatures and sea levels to drive tens of millions from coastal cities and drown rich delta soils, turned rich midcontinent farmland into desert, and made storms in wetter regions destructively stronger and erratic.
They’ll see that even during this delayed reaction to the Big Burn, fossil fuels petered out, and with them the irrigation and fertilizer that made it possible to feed so many extra billions.
And they’ll see that before the resulting hardships, people in the richest countries got fatter, yet no happier.
They will see that we squandered Earth, their birthright, for the sake of more, more, and ever- more.
But we can leave a better picture if we work now to save a planet that’s still in many ways a garden.
This will require us to radically redefine progress and what we mean by “standard of living.” We can’t measure these only with material yardsticks, aiming only for “efficiency” toward higher levels of consumption. The goal should be what writer Wendell Berry calls “poorer in luxuries and gadgets, but richer in the things that lead to life-satisfaction: family, community, meaning, peace of mind.” We must make an honest accounting of what our planet can support long term. We must remember that human endeavor is merely a subsidiary of Earth, Ltd.
Since the free market has failed us here, we need new rules of taxation, regulation and treaty. So:
. Make the American way of life negotiable. Our fuel burning pumps into the atmosphere more global-warming carbon dioxide than any other nation, even though No. 2 China has more than four times as many people. We have to lead the way out.
. Do this by taxing fossil fuels to slash release of greenhouse gases. Price these fuels at their true, long-term cost, including illness from pollution and food production lost to climate change. Invest the revenue in sustainable alternatives. Do it soon: Leading NASA climate scientist James Hansen reckons we have a decade at most to start reducing greenhouse gases before drastic climate change becomes inevitable.
. Negotiate with other affluent countries to cut consumption. Again, it’s our responsibility to lead.
. For poor nations, greatly expand aid, but make it conditional: They must control population and pollution, and protect land, air and water. This investment could be far less than current military spending, yet better for long-term national security.
And for policy and individual conduct in general, recognize that what we call economic growth, running now on so much principal (resources) from the natural world, cannot last. Instead of spending like there’s no tomorrow, conserve - make this the United States of Conservation - and pass along a good life to our descendants.
What could make them prouder?
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Scott Bontz wrote this for the Prairie Writers Circle, a project of the Land Institute, Salina, Kansas.
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Dr. Jane Goodall’s Earth Day Message of Hope
We live in dark times: we are destroying Mother Earth and many people have lost hope. So it is important to highlight all that is being done to heal our planet.
More and more of us are protesting the magnitude of the insults perpetrated against people, animals, and environment, the selfish squandering of our children’s future all in the name of economic progress. Thousands are joining together to tackle problems of poverty, the unsustainable life styles of the elite and the destruction of the environment.
Through programs such as the provision of small loans for the poor, empowerment of women, organic farms, farmers markets, the purchase of farmland and wilderness to prevent development, and alternative energy technologies, the quality of life can be improved and people can better live in harmony with nature. And nature is very resilient.
Most importantly, we are realizing that we as individuals truly make a difference and are thinking more carefully about the effect of our actions. This lies at the heart of the Jane Goodall Institute’s youth program, Roots & Shoots: roots make a firm foundation, shoots seem small but to reach the light can break through brick walls (all the problems we have inflicted on the planet) to make this world a better place for all. The thousands of groups in 95 countries select hands-on projects that help animals, the environment and the human community.
My greatest source of hope for the future is the energy, commitment and often the courage of young people when they know the problems and are empowered to act. They are changing the world.
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Dr. Jane Goodall is a dedicated primatologist and founder of the Jane Goodall Institute whose mission is to advance the power of individuals to take informed and compassionate action to improve the environment of all living things.
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Earth Day
(adapted from Wikipedia)
An Environmental Teach-in or Earth Day was first held on April 22, 1970. Over 20 million people participated and it is now observed each year by more than 500 million people and national governments in 175 countries.
The 1960s had been a very dynamic period for ecology in the US, in both theory and practice. It was in the mid-1960s that Congress passed the sweeping Wilderness Act. Pre-1960 grassroots activism against DDT had inspired Rachel Carson to write her shocking bestseller Silent Spring (1962).
Earth Day proved extremely popular in the United States and around the world. The first Earth Day, in 1970, had participants and celebrants in two thousand colleges and universities, roughly ten thousand primary and secondary schools, and hundreds of communities across the United States. More importantly, it “brought 20 million Americans out into the spring sunshine for peaceful demonstrations in favor of environmental reform.”
Now observed in 175 countries, and coordinated by the non-profit Earth Day Network, http://www.earthday.org, Earth Day is the largest secular holiday in the world.
The Aftermath of Earth Day 1970
The momentum of environmental discussion and action helped make Earth Day happen. It is generally accepted that this momentum was increased by the event itself. The first Earth Day is commonly credited with giving a tremendous boost to the pre- existing conservation groups and the relatively new and radical grassroots ecology movement.
Ralph Nader directly credited the first Earth Day with persuading U.S. politicians that environmental legislation had a substantial, lasting constituency. Many important laws were passed by the Congress in the wake of the 1970 Earth Day, including the Clean Air Act, the Endangered Species Act, and laws to protect drinking water, wild lands and the ocean.
(Trivia: April 22 1970 was the 100th birthday of Vladmir Lenin. Time magazine reported that some suspected the date was not a coincidence, but a clue that the event was “a Communist trick” - then quoted a member of the conservative organization Daughters of the American Revolution complaining that, “Subversive elements plan to make American children live in an environment that is good for them.")
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[the article below cites some of the reforms won during the 1970s in the wake of the first Earth Day]
Gardens, Soils, and Tailpipe Blues
By Ralph Nader 4/3/07
Years ago, when leaded gasoline was what gas stations sold to motorists, I would be driving through the fertile valleys in California and see the crops growing right up to shoulders of the narrow blacktop roads that coursed the expansive fields. “Doesn’t this lead coming out of many vehicular tailpipes get into the soil and contaminate the food that is harvested there?” I wondered.
Lead in gasoline was phased out by the EPA beginning in 1975. But the lead that had been deposited in farmlands prior to that point is not degradable. It is still there. Surprisingly, the EPA has no binding minimum lead level for soil growing vegetables, fruits, corn, soy beans, wheat, barley and the like.
Knowledge about lead and other heavy metals in urban gardens may be on the way, thanks to organic farmer Michael Keilty, who is a sustainable agriculture lecturer at the University of Connecticut.
In the past decade, urban and suburban community gardens have sprung up in cities around the country. Unfortunately, the density of heavy metal contaminants has raised suspicions that this otherwise marvelous civic initiative may have a downside, albeit a remediable one.
Working with soil scientists and analytical chemists at the Connecticut Agricultural Experiment Station and the Connecticut Community Gardening Association, Mr. Keilty is advancing a proposal to test some of the 44 Connecticut cities and towns with active community gardening programs. These sites contain 2,280 individual garden plots and provide many moderate to low income residents with a source of nutritious and affordable food.
Preliminary findings, in 2006, have shown elevated levels of lead, arsenic and other heavy metals in soil samples taken from 12 out of 17 initial collection sites, compared with background levels. Three of these sites exceeded the state lead guidelines, while one of them reached the definition of a hazardous waste site.
Lead poisoning is especially damaging to children’s developing brains and nervous systems. Leaded paint peeling off tenement walls has damaged millions of mostly poor children over the past eighty years. Some of the children who are described as having learning disabilities were really suffering from lead poisoning. Fortunately lead was also banned from paint in 1978, but peeling apartment walls painted long ago still provide an enticement to little children to chew and swallow paint chips.
Federal, state and local efforts to rid these buildings of lead have lagged in both funding and enforcement. One would think that ridding this silent form of violence would come under “national defense,” but the President is too preoccupied with sending hundreds of billions of tax dollars to destroy Iraq and deepen that costly quagmire.
Problem-solvers, like Michael Keilty and Thomas Bott of the Connecticut Community Gardening Association, are focusing on soil health and the safety of produce in America. Their findings and their recommendations for soil cleanup will benefit the community garden movement throughout our country.
Community gardens have many, many benefits beyond providing needed food and dollar savings. The joint project proposal, by Mr. Keilty and his colleagues, lists: “a sense of community that culminates in interaction among various community groups; a source of pride in the neighborhood; reclamation of unused, neglected parcels of land; the level of physical activity associated with gardening; and the educational source for young people who learn where their food comes from and how it grows.”